To be one’s true self is the goal in life. This blog series would not exist if it weren’t for a reunion with an old friend who had all the makings of a modern-day Mozart. But at a pivotal fork in the road, he chose the path behind a desk, instead of one behind a keyboard, which would’ve honored his gift - like Mozart did. Now, 20 years later, he’s unrecognizable, this friend who once had music radiating from every cell, especially when singing in random bursts of happiness. The years have taken their toll - not just in the added 20 pounds that don’t belong, but in the heaviness that comes when living someone else’s life, and not one’s true purpose. The life you came here to live.
As a writer, this inspired me to highlight the special souls who chose to follow their true path. The tougher path, but one that honors and expresses the powerful gift of music they’ve been given. To live the Mozart life. May some of their words help or inspire you to find your true calling in life.
It’s hard to believe that it’s exactly 30 years ago last week that Howard Jones released his “One to One” album, with the single version of “No One Is To Blame” on that CD. Though the song, with its clever juxtaposing lyrics, had been on 1985’s “Dream Into Action,” it was this more radio-friendly version that many of us know and became a popular track here on regular pop radio in the U.S., with Phil Collins on backing vocals and drums. It’s fitting for Howard that, exactly 30 years later, he got an award at a BMI awards dinner last week for having 3 million U.S. airplays of his most popular song here.
Songs are such powerful time machines. For good and for bad - they can make us happy or sad, depending on the memory, and they can remind us of the all too quick passage of time. I’m sure, I, like many, can recall having “No One Is To Blame” on repeat at some point, like when a boyfriend broke up with me in school and for the next few months I played this song over and over again, with tears and a box of tissues.
So what a thrill it was in one of life’s brilliant full circle moments, to be able to speak to the person who created the songs that felt so special and fresh back in the 1980s during a generation’s British invasion of New Wave music. Howard reflects on the once in our lifetime musical event that brought the world together - Live Aid, as well as what inspired “No One Is To Blame,” how important lyrics are for songs, which for him, have a message, and how he knew to take the music path as his life’s work. Howard will also be back touring the states starting Nov. 21 in New Jersey.
What’s your take on the fact that some of the best songs were written in minutes. It’s often said original music is often channeled from our Higher Selves, like when we hear people say it just comes from somewhere else, or in their dreams. Music flows through you. Do you know where your inspiration comes?
I don’t think of it in terms of that. From my point of view, I can only speak for me, it’s this intention to communicate and articulate how one feels at certain times, and that real desire to crystallize it in lyrics and then music that supports that thing. So I don’t think it as any kind of higher self going on, I just think it emanates from - Why do you want to do this? And for me, it’s always been – I absolutely want to communicate something with other people, put something down as a little packet of energy, which I think of as being a song that articulates a feeling at a certain time that people who aren’t musicians and who aren’t poets, they’re busy with their lives, they haven’t got time to do that. The job of you as a songwriter is to articulate that for them, and that’s how can be of use, your role in society. It’s your job. (laughs)
What song or songs are you most proud of, that came in such an easy way, ethereally almost, flowed through you?
There’s a song on the first album, it’s called “Hide and Seek,” which is my favorite album. It’s the one I played at Live Aid, and that song, I did feel that that just came. I don’t know where it came from. As long as it takes to play the song, it was written. I was kind of shocked with that one. I woke up one Sunday morning I remember, and I got this heartbeat rhythm playing on my Roland drum machine, and then the song absolutely just flooded out. So I have experienced that, but more often than not, you’re having to work at it to bring it out. To bring the song to life, you have to work at it.
Speaking of Live Aid, it was the one thing that was such a technological feat, it’s never happened again where everyone in the world came together like that through music. What was your take on being part of such a big unifying thing in the world through music?
I think you’re absolutely right, that it was a first time, well it was a global event, and there were two billion people watching it. It never happened before, it was for an amazing cause and it was done through music, and people were expressing their finer sides by being part of it. And you’re right, it hasn’t happened since and I’m so pleased that I was part of it because it was a real piece of history, and it saved tens of thousands of people’s lives. It actually really did. And it showed how much feeling there was around the world when people doing something together, sharing something together, how powerful that is and we need more of that really. We need more of that now more than ever.
For someone like me, I was able to see my favorite British artists, like you and everyone I heard on the New Wave radio station.
It was an amazing achievement by Geldof and Midge Ure to pull that off. It was driven by Geldof’s anger that nobody was doing anything about what was going on, and he couldn’t stand by and watch it, so he turned his anger into this crazy passion to pull this off, and everybody came on board. It was irresistible, the force that came from him.
There are divine moments of serendipity, where a catalyst opens the door that leads to the path we’re meant to be on, the one where we live out the fullest expression of our true selves. What was that moment for you and how did it happen?
When I was 14, I went to a music festival called the Isle of Wight Music Festival, and I saw some of the greatest artists that ever been on the planet. I saw Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, the Who, Emerson Lake and Palmer, which was their very first proper show. It absolutely blew my mind at seeing all those people. It as so inspiring and I knew at that moment that’s what I wanted to do. And from that moment, I orientated my life towards being able to do that. I oriented my life towards doing what I’m doing now. It was a big turning point for me.
What inspired this blog series was seeing an old friend who has a special gift of music, but didn’t choose that path, who, 20 years later, isn’t living the life he thought he would live. I give readings on the side, it’s my passion, it’s my gift and a little more ethereal and not widely accepted as the gift of music is, so I gave him a reading and that’s what his spirit guides said. He agreed, and I didn’t know that, he clearly must’ve thought he was going to do music when I knew him years ago. So people like you who make music and get to travel the world doing so are such a rare example of a life where you’re able to honor and channel your gift of music. What are your thoughts? And do you feel you’re consciously living the life you thought you would be living, back when you were 14 after that music festival?
I had no idea what that life would be like and I didn’t know where it would take me. But it was just that drive. That was the most exciting thing I could think of and I played the piano since I was 7, so it seemed possible for me to do that, and I just kept believing it was possible. The truth is that there’s many successful musicians, but they don’t always end up very happy with it. I’ve seen that myself and I feel very happy with my life because I’m not looking at it from the point of view of, “Hey, look at me.” It’s like, I’ve got something to offer, so I’m going to make sure that I do. It’s like you want to give people the benefit of the things that you’re good at. Like with your readings, you’re good at that, so that is a really fulfilling thing to do.
Yeah, but I played piano at 8, and I don’t have that gift of music. When did you know you had this gift of music and how did you start the human discipline to channel it and bring it forth?
When I was nine years old, I remember being able to pick out a tune of a record that I heard on the radio, and I was able to make it happen on piano and I got so excited by that. And then, as I got older and I was practicing for four hours a day, I started to realize that actually what I was doing was sort of meditating for this huge amount of time. My parents couldn’t keep me away from the piano. It was like an obsession and I realized that actually I felt so calm and peaceful when I sat at the piano and playing. I think that was a huge part of it, it was like a sort of meditation where you really are in the moment. You’re there at the piano, you’re listening to what you’re creating at the time and nothing else exists. So that was quite addictive for me, but I missed out on a lot of my teenage years because I was always at the piano, I was always playing.
When I do readings, I feel most at peace, my truest self. Did you feel like you’re your most true self, sitting at the piano, like your perfect place?
Yes that’s right, that’s right, that’s what it feels like - this is where I’m supposed to be, what I’m supposed to be doing. But when people would be out playing, out messing around with their friends and doing stuff, I would be at home practicing. (laughs)
I’ve said in the blog post about living the Mozart life, that it may be a tougher road to choose, but you’re truly fully living your true selves. Do you resonate to that? Because you did not choose the 9 to 5 path because you said at 14 you saw that major concert and you just knew you were going to do this other path?
I realized that I couldn’t be happy doing – well, I worked in factory for a while to earn money, and did regular jobs, but I knew that it wasn’t what I was supposed to be doing, that always it was a means to an end, working at a factory, and I knew that what I really needed to be doing was my music. I was always pursing that goal of being able to play and to record and sing for people.
Back in the day, when I first heard “Life in One Day,” “Things Can Only Get Better” and especially “New Song,” they sound so fresh, so special when they came on the radio. Can you talk about how these songs came to you?
Usually, with those three - it would be a rhythm first, because I was working with my machines, the drum machines and the sequencers. A lot of it was based on “What I could do live?” So I had my live set up running, and it was very much, “How can I perform these live?” So I needed to create songs that would work with the instruments I had. So I would get rhythm going first, and I’m a piano player since I was seven and would usually have a piano sound that would establish the chord structure.
The difficult bit always for me would be the lyrics, because it was very important to me that the songs had a message. So that’s where most of the effort went in, because the music flowed fairly easily, but getting the lyrics right seemed the most important thing for me, because people are going to hear those lyrics, they were going to think about them and with music, you have this direct path into people’s consciousness, so you’ve got to act responsibly with that in mind.
For me, it was really important that when people heard them they would feel encouraged in some way, or inspired to go out and do something great, or to feel confident, or to feel that they had control over their own destiny. So that’s what I always try to do. They’re little philosophical pieces, really, they’re not like typical pop songs in that sense. But it’s just always what I wanted to do.
“New Song” sounded so fresh, it was such a fresh sounding song whenever it came on. That seemed more about the melody.
I was fortunate because I was one of the people to be able to have access to that technology and to use it on records. The whole thing for me was to make records that didn’t sound like all my heroes, but to have a new fresh sound, so I was using sequencers and the drum machines and the stuff that I was doing live with my one man show.
So it was bound to, in a way, sound different to what had gone before. And we were using sampling in the studio, we were using all the new technology SSL desks, so it had that very bright, sparkly sound as well. But I suppose because I was really melody based, although I had all that new technology, if you stripped it all away, there would be a song that I could play to you on the piano as well. And I think that’s what really connected with people, especially in the States.
Have you done an acoustic tour?
Now more than ever I always have a month or so in the year where I go out and just play the piano and sing songs, because for me it’s really important to develop that side of what I do, the singer songwriter side, and the keyboard playing and also to talk a lot to the audience and explain myself. I love doing that.
Music is so powerful. A song like “No One is To Blame” can take me right back to that moment. Some of the best songs were written in minutes. How do you find inspiration for the music? Is there somewhere deep within that you know where the inspiration comes from?
I’m trying to think back to how long that one took, I think it one took a bit longer, but it was really through the lyrical idea, and it’s quite complex, that song, and it does mean a lot of things to a lot of people, it’s interesting for me, because normally songs are pretty straight forward of what is meant.
But with “No One is to Blame,” it’s got that ability I think to strike a chord with lots of different situations that one might find oneself in. You could look at it, as a human being, it’s talking about being honest about fancying other people, you may be with one great partner, but it doesn’t stop your brain looking at other people and going, “I really like them” or “they’re really attractive” and exploring that idea that you shouldn’t think you’re like some kind of demon just because you have those thoughts. It maybe it’s quite natural to feel like that. The difficult bit comes when you want to take action based on it, because if you do, then things get complicated and often disastrous. I don’t think there’s anybody’s who hasn’t felt like that, in that position. It’s a song that it’s saying - that’s what it’s like to be a human being, you don’t have to beat yourself up. Just find a way to (laughs) manage it, and be in control.
Did you have your own human experience, and then you wrote it through that, or was it seeing other people negotiate that in life?
I think it’s a combination of what goes on in your own head, and what you’re seeing happen to your friends. There isn’t one moment. So I had that first line – “You can look at the menu, but you just can’t eat.” It seems like there was a whole string of metaphors that just flows after that. “You’re the fastest runner, but you’re not allowed to win.” That still gets me, that line. That you just have to be very self, you have to be strong within yourself and not be swayed by what other people think or how they underestimate you or (laughs) overestimate you. It’s got quite a lot of complexity in it, and I think that’s why it stood the test of time, that one.
What’s your take on the genre of New Wave, how it’s so ethereal. It came in one moment, in the 1980s, and then it seems like it’s gone? Do you think about that, since you’re living your life daily.
I do think that that period of time during the ‘80s when there was this explosion of that new sound and most of it was quite positive and upbeat, not all of it, but quite a lot of it was. And a generation of young people grew up with that and absolutely took that to their heart and listened to every syllable that was being said, and it just became part of their DNA. So there has to be a time in the future which is probably now (laughs) when those people really want to celebrate that part of their life. And that’s why I think when we go out and we do the shows, it’s on the up at the moment. But I do think that happens with every generation of young people that claims music as their own. It’s important that their music has a sound that’s different to what their parents like, or what everyone else likes. It’s got to be their own and it was a particularly good time for pop music, and it was danceable and it was very upbeat.
What is your songwriting process? Do you have a daily routine? Are you still writing?
I’m constantly working on new things, that’s what I do. I’m touring a lot, but I’m working in the studio all the time. I’m in the studio doing something, I’m either preparing for shows or working on a track that I’ve recorded here, but there’s no particular routine. I don’t do routine really, I get bored with it so quickly. I’m constantly working but it’s not like I’m in the studio at 8 o’clock and I finish at 5 (laughs) because once you get going, I can be up all night working on stuff and then the next day not.